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Dessert

Spiced Jelly

A jelly made from crab apples, vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Combine crab apples, vinegar, and enough water to cover the apples in a large pot.

  2. Add whole cinnamon, cloves, and allspice, then bring to a boil until the apples are soft.

  3. Strain the mixture through a bag to extract the juice.

Make and jar the jelly

  1. For every pint of juice, add 1 lb. of sugar.

  2. Boil the juice for twenty minutes, then add the warmed sugar.

  3. Once boiling, remove from heat and pour into jelly glasses.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Crab apples
Provide the fruit pectin and tart flavour that give the jelly its set and character.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it set into a firm, glossy gel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and supports pectin setting.
Whole cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the jelly.
Whole cloves
Contributes a strong, warm spice aroma to the jelly.
Whole allspice
Contributes a peppery, warm spice aroma to the jelly.

The step that matters

Boiling the juice with sugar. Sugar must dissolve fully and the mixture must reach a rolling boil so pectin and acid can set the jelly; too short a boil leaves it runny.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, allspice, sugar):

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, allspice, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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